A pillar risen high.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon stood at its narrow summit, where sitting was about all one could manage.
The Fateless Terrace, a terrace so high that no bond of fate could reach it.
A fitting name.
Turning his head left and right, he found the world spread out at a dizzying, unfathomable depth.
It seemed that the slightest movement would send him plunging to a bottom without end.
Of course!
Only for him.
Seen from outside, it would look as though he were sitting at his writing desk studying his letters just as always.
'Hoh, look at this fellow.'
Han Si-heon's move struck him as ridiculous.
He could more than guess why the man had suddenly sealed him inside a formation.
He meant to break his spirit.
An ordinary seven-year-old would do just that.
However heaven-sent his talent, with the scenery suddenly changed and his footing turned perilous, he ought to weep and wail at once and beg to be saved.
'So our adorable master means to pick a fight with me?'
A contest of wills is a fight too.
And he could not lose a fight.
Turning his gaze outside the formation, Jaegal Mun-hyeon burned with the will to win and sneered at Han Si-heon.
'Young scholar, you have misjudged me, and badly.'
Of course the man could not see it.
He merely looked where the man was likely to be.
Then he lowered his eyes to the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind spread open on the writing desk and spoke.
"So I am not to come out until I have read it all? Then let us do that."
If anything it was welcome.
He had needed time to train the Lesser Heavenly Star Art, and if his master would grant him such an opening, it was only right to accept it with gratitude.
What is more, it was even safe.
His master, having started a contest of wills, would hardly release the formation, and he would keep anyone from approaching as well.
'Thank you, Master.'
Jaegal Mun-hyeon straightened his back and closed his eyes.
First the breathing.......
"Hah!"
For Han Si-heon it could only be absurd.
Since it was the kind of formation that shows its illusions only to the one sealed within, Jaegal Mun-hyeon was plainly visible from outside.
And what was this reaction?
Granting a hundred concessions, even short of a violent start there ought to have been a flinch of surprise.
And yet he smiled?
He even seemed to stare straight at him from inside the formation, and then shut his eyes entirely.
"What in the world......."
On the chance of it, he even went back over his calculations to check whether the formation had been laid out correctly, but there was nothing amiss at all.
The formation was perfect.
And yet, far from taking fright, the boy was sitting in leisurely meditation.
Who would believe it?
That a mere seven-year-old could be so serene atop the Fateless Terrace.
And had the boy not issued a provocative declaration of war against him?
"You wretch...... so you truly mean to do this? Very well, I shall see how long you hold out."
That he had shut his eyes without so much as a glance at the book was an unmistakable challenge.
He was a man who had raised many disciples.
He absolutely could not lose to a seven-year-old. Jaegal Mun-hyeon had begun a fight whose defeat was already certain.
However strong his spirit, however little the formation startled him, he would not be able to withstand hunger.
"I have my own stubbornness, Mun-hyeon."
In the end it was a contest of endurance.
And when it came to endurance, he was a man who would resent being called second.
To study formations is by nature to repeat failure upon failure without giving up and to bear long stretches of patient suffering.
Knowing that whoever rose first would lose, Han Si-heon waited for Jaegal Mun-hyeon to show a reaction.
With nothing to do but watch, the time could only drag on tediously.
A while longer and his legs went numb and he began to itch all over, but Han Si-heon did not give up.
Even the child sat that straight.......
He gritted his teeth and began to read the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind aloud.
It was the only book at hand.
Meanwhile the sun climbed to the center of the sky.
Watching their studies from a distance as they prepared lunch, Baek Su-hyeon and So-hye were nothing but content.
Look — are they not full of passion?
The master recites the text and the disciple listens with closed eyes, turning its meaning over.
"Section Chief Han is truly a fine master."
"The Hall Leader would hardly have made just anyone the Young Master's teacher."
"That is true."
"But he must be hungry, skipping lunch like this......."
At So-hye's worry Baek Su-hyeon shook her head.
"There is no help for it. He has not said so, but must Mun-hyeon not be greatly grieved at being barred from the Myriad Books Pavilion? My husband understood that heart of his and provided him a teacher of letters, so how precious must this time be? Look how he concentrates even now."
"That is true enough."
"Let us wait. It pains me to have him miss a meal...... but see how steeped in his studies he is."
"Yes, my lady."
The two looked with contented faces upon the admirable Jaegal Mun-hyeon and upon Han Si-heon, passionately reading out the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind, and withdrew the meal they had gone to such trouble to prepare.
***
How much time had passed?
The sun crossed the western ridge and spread out a crimson brocade.
As though its light had dyed the whole world, Jaegal Mun-hyeon's face too seemed to take on a flush.
'Done. It is done.'
His heart was full.
The Lesser Heavenly Star Art.
Through the breathing method he had transformed anew by his own means, he had at last formed the elixir.
In a single day, no less.......
It was a speed fast enough to knock others flat with shock if they heard of it, but would a man have been called the Heavenly Demon for nothing?
'Hmm, but is it because of a noted house's bloodline? The frame is fairly sturdy. The blood vessels are tough as well.'
Having examined every part of his body while forming the elixir, Jaegal Mun-hyeon was deeply satisfied.
He had not been born with anything as grand as a Heavenly Martial Body, but his was a physique one could call suited to practicing martial arts.
Bones and muscles sturdy enough to withstand training, and blood vessels able to circulate energy smoothly, were quite enough.
With the elixir formed, it would not take long to temper the body, diligently accumulate inner arts, and pass the Peak to reach the Transcendent Peak.
Roughly ten years?
His experience was already ample, so that much should do.
Transcending the limits of the body one is born with, however, is no easy matter. Even with enlightenment already attained.
Most martial artists are blocked by that wall and merely waste their days until qi dispersal comes upon them.
But was there no way?
'Well, once I bring the Lesser Heavenly Star Art to complete mastery, I need only devour some spirit beast, undergo Body Reformation and swap the body out.'
He had done it before.
And was that all?
He was a man who had achieved the Return to Simplicity, which others called a realm out of legend, and stepped past the body's decay with the Return to Youth.
And after that.
'Ascension. I will achieve it without fail.'
That was the final goal.
Well, if he truly ascended another goal might appear, but for now that was it.
Of course it had to be different from before.
He would not rely on others.
He had trusted and left it to them, and that damned bastard Yu Gil-cheon passed down something strange, and look at the state of him.
He would find it himself.
And though it was not Ascension but birth he had met with, Yu Gil-cheon's method could not be dismissed either.
He would take that as a base and revise it bit by bit.
GURRRGLE.
"......."
Sealed in the formation with no view of the outside, he did not know how much time had passed, but he was hungry.
Time to eat, more or less.
When he slowly opened his eyes, he was still atop the Fateless Terrace.
Saying 'Master, I am hungry' would no doubt fill his belly.
But that would be the same as admitting defeat.
How could he lose?
'Hmm, let us see.'
Jaegal Mun-hyeon surveyed his surroundings through narrowed eyes.
Knowing it was an illusion, he felt no fear.
'Still, will it do simply to walk out?'
To drive this fellow off, a perfect victory was needed.
And through it he would teach the man that his skill fell far short of being fit to teach him.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon rose to his feet.
CRRRACK!
His stiffened body shrieked in protest.
"Ugh, my aching bones. How long has it been, exactly?"
Grumbling all the while, he worked out his aching, stiffened body.
Then, his movements easier, he shifted his feet front and back and side to side to observe the formation's variations.
Formations.
Once he would have smashed it apart by force, but now, with no qi accumulated, he had to read the formation out.
Surely he was not without even basic knowledge?
He was a man who had done plenty of groundwork, if not to the Jaegal Clan's level.
Know the principle and the reading is simple.
It begins with yin and yang; upon that the axis of the five elements is added, and the eight trigrams added again make the formation formidable.
'Unless Han Si-heon is a madman, he would never have used a formation with the five elements and the eight trigrams on top for a seven-year-old child.'
The moment the five elements are added, a formation gains lethal force made real. Add the eight trigrams and it produces boundless variation and at times shakes the mind until one falls into inner demons.
But the man was his father's subordinate.
However much he meant to break the boy's stubbornness, he would never have used such a formation on the man's son.
Working his feet this way and that with that in mind, one spot in the formation's illusion warped slightly, unlike the rest.
A gap.
The place commonly called the Gate of Life.
In higher formations its position shifts at will in response to the movements of the one sealed inside, but as if a basic formation would have any such thing.
With a short laugh, Jaegal Mun-hyeon moved toward the Gate of Life.
It plainly looked like empty air over a precipice, but when he set his foot upon it the illusion vanished as though washed away, and the floorboards appeared beneath his sole.
And on his second step, having left the formation and returned to the original space, Jaegal Mun-hyeon could at last tell the time.
The day had closed in and gone dim. It seemed suppertime had already come and gone.
Rubbing his hungry belly, Jaegal Mun-hyeon called out toward Baek Su-hyeon in the distance.
"Mother, I am hungry! Give me food!"
"Yes, wait just a little."
Baek Su-hyeon, who had been waiting all that while for the lesson to end, began bustling about with So-hye.
To their eyes he had merely studied hard, risen, and walked out.
But could the same be said of Han Si-heon's position?
His face was worth seeing.
So startled was he that his eyes went as wide as lantern bowls and his mouth hung open. It was the expression of a man who had seen some kind of monster.
Startled you, did I, fellow?
Your wits seem to have been knocked clean out of you.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon grinned at him and said,
"Master, are you not hungry?"
"......."
"Take your meal before you go. I shall go and relieve myself."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon bobbed his head and disappeared toward the outhouse, and until then Han Si-heon could make no answer at all and only blinked.
What on earth just happened?
He had seen the boy rise.
He had thought he had won.
Then again, the child had eaten nothing until the day closed in.
But contrary to his expectation, Jaegal Mun-hyeon had stood still and begun to make small movements.
What in the world was he doing?
At first he was puzzled, and then he realized the boy was examining the formation.
A mere seven-year-old, examining a formation.......
And not long after, he had moved and walked out through the Gate of Life without a moment's hesitation.
At the unreality of it his mind went blank and he could not even answer Jaegal Mun-hyeon's words.
How on earth.......
It was then.
"Section Chief Han, have you been teaching all this while?"
"......."
"Hah hah, do not look at me so. I could hardly bear the curiosity. Still, I have come out only after finishing all my work. Truly."
At Han Si-heon's blank stare, a guilty Jaegal Do-yun made his excuses hurriedly.
"Oh, come now! Why do you not believe me? Surely you do not take me for a man who would neglect his duties out of curiosity about his son's studies?"
Somewhat aggrieved, Jaegal Do-yun nonetheless went ahead and asked the question he had been holding to his chest.
"Well, how was it? Did he follow your teaching well?"
"......."
Jaegal Do-yun.
Leader of the Jaegal Clan's Military Stratagem Hall, a man who had taken charge of strategy, tactics and formations.
The one who studied the Eight Formations Diagram, which survived only in records, and revived it perfectly.......
"Ah!"
Han Si-heon's blank focus returned and he came to himself with a start.
So that was it.
That was how it was.
Nothing else would explain it.
Then he frowned and asked,
"Did you by any chance teach your son formations?"
"Hm?"
"And I had no idea...... Honestly, do you know how startled I was? You might have given me some warning."
"Hmm?"
At the sight of Han Si-heon shaking his head and taking offense, Jaegal Do-yun blinked with a bewildered expression.